Month: July 2016

They face greater competition to raise funds than ever before. There are over 56,000 registered charities in Australia – that’s 1 charity for every 400 Australians. And many of them are competing for the same cause (over 2,000 organisations are seeking donations for breast cancer alone).

To add to the problem, Australians are tighter with their donation dollars, the government is slashing grants and the volunteer workforce is shrinking forcing charities to explore more innovative strategies through alliances, mergers and sharing resources.

The problem reached a cross roads late last year with sector leaders calling for charities to merge or shut down because too many are wasting valuable resources competing with each other.

How The Gift Register is getting around the problem.

The Gift Register is choosing to support charities that will benefit from our ‘wish list’ structure as we have everything in place to help them achieve their mission, including a broad range of gift items.

We want to support organisations we feel passionate about – charities that prove to make a difference locally with a philosophy that complements our dedication to giving. This way, the charities we support benefit through a fresh and innovative way of attracting public support.

Our first featured charity, Lighthouse Foundation, has a vision to end youth homelessness. And over the past 25 years they’ve made incredible headway helping more than 800 young people successfully break the homelessness cycle. Lighthouse does this by providing a safe and nurturing living environment and consistent parental role models, as well as clinical and practical support services. At present, they are welcoming gifts that will help create comfortable homes to resettle young people from homelessness. The process involves a dedicated level of support, not only providing practical necessities like homewares, bed linen and even Miki cards to get around – but also on a personal level involving emotional wellbeing.

All of Lighthouse foundation’s needs are featured via a public wish list, which can be accessed through The Gift Register’s charity page.The beauty of this is that the items you choose to purchase are sent directly to Light House Foundation’s head office for them to distribute to young homeless people within their care.

You deserve to know exactly where your money is going.

With the competition so fierce in today’s climate, charities have to allocate a large proportion of their funding to marketing and administration costs, which means you have no idea whether your support is having a direct impact on the cause.

By donating through The Gift Register, you’re in control of the item you buy. You choose were your money is going. And you can feel reassured that your gift(s) will have a direct impact to young homeless people across Victoria.

Together, we can help make a difference.

Visit our charity page today to find out more about how you can help the charities we feature.

The Gift Register aims to rotate a number of charities over a calendar year. If you hold an interest in becoming one of these charities, please apply to [email protected].